


Game Night at Beacon Academy: 4th Edition

by Kiiratam



Series: Game Nights at Beacon Academy & Beyond [12]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), RWBY
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Fluff, RWBY plays D&D, Weiss suffers, Zwei cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-25 04:47:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21870283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiiratam/pseuds/Kiiratam
Summary: RWBY, Jaune and Pyrrha devote another night to their on-going Fortresses & Froghemoths game.This session: The party is at a party, with a murderous agenda and a cunning plan. Absolutely nothing will go horribly wrong.Takes place between Volumes 2 and 3. (My BMBLB fic index)
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Series: Game Nights at Beacon Academy & Beyond [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1482323
Comments: 14
Kudos: 48





	Game Night at Beacon Academy: 4th Edition

_It's just a party._ Ruby told herself. _I'm ready._

  
And she was. She'd spent most of her free time that week getting ready for it: mapping out the place, detailing everyone on the guest list - mostly - and writing herself a giant chart of what everyone thought about everyone else. Which was mostly 'X hates Y hates Z hates X.'

  
Despite that, she'd dragged Zwei over to her chair, so she could give him pets. He licked her hand, and curled up on her lap to go to sleep. She was pretty sure he thought he was a cat, sometimes.

  
Weiss pouted a bit. She'd tried to lure Zwei over to _her_ chair, but Zwei knew what side his bread was buttered on.

  
...Both sides, probably. Then when it fell on the floor, it would _definitely_ be trash, and then he might be able to scarf it down. At least Weiss wasn't one of those dog people who thought all food could be dog food. She'd even gotten some extra fancy food for him. He was going to be spoiled rotten - rottener? rottenest? when he went back to Patch.

  
"Are we all ready?" Blake was practically bouncing on the couch. Ruby had a sudden certainty that Blake had _also_ spent a lot of time planning.

  
But Ruby had to trust her planning. and her ability to improvise. "Alright! Deosil, sound off!"

  
Across the table, Jaune just sighed and put his head down. Pyrrha leaned over and whispered to him, "Clockwise."

  
Yang rolled her shoulders and shook out her dice-rolling hand. Well, her dice-rolling app hand. "Furioso, anti-inquisitor, husband to many, easy meat for charms, with a snazzy new fire-resistant cloak."

  
Blake nodded at her. "It _is_ very stylish."

  
"And I didn't even have to die for it! That was the best part." Yang poked Blake's shoulder. "Introduce yourself, best husband."

  
Weiss glared at her from across the table. "Ex _cuse_ me?"

  
Yang started counting off on her fingers. "One, she gives more pluses than you do. Two, she didn't try to leave me for dead last session. Three, she - sorry, he- doesn't hoard all the gold-pressed mana pieces because 'I need them to heal.' Four-"

  
Weiss flipped her rulebook open with a scowl. "If I can read you the relevant section, **again** -"

  
Rolling her eyes, Blake mussed Yang's hair. "Husbands, _please_. We're **all** desperately in love with each other." Weiss and Yang glared at each other. Ruby was pretty sure that their characters had a - what had Blake called it? 'Outwardly abrasive, but secretly very tender relationship'? It seemed **very** secretly tender.

  
Pyrrha asked, "I thought you hadn't gotten married? Because Furioso became an anti-inquisitor?"

  
Blake shrugged. "Easier than saying 'my husband and my boyfriend.'" She tapped her cheek, looking at Pyrrha with her thoughtful face on. "...I can't believe we forgot to have sex last session."

  
She didn't say anything, but Pyrrha started turning bright red. And Ruby had no idea what her expression said - it wasn't one she'd seen before, and anyway, Pyrrha practically buried her head in her character sheet before Ruby could really get a good look at it.

  
 _Blake_ seemed to have understood it, though, because she said quickly. "For Orlando's Bone Deep Rhythm Sexspiration? The +6 attack and damage? It might have made the Feldauphin fight go better."

  
Pyrrha nodded, but didn't raise her head.

  
"Um, so..." Blake addressed the rest of the table. "I'm Orlando, and I'm a lyric thaumaturge, and we are going to go to a party and kick some skinny Feldauphin butts."

  
Yang had a big grin on her face as she put her arm around Blake and hugged her close. She gave the best hugs. Blake apparently thought so too, because she snuggled into Yang's hug with her rare cozy smile on her face.

  
She only got that smile for Yang. Well, almost only. Ruby had come back to the room to find Blake curled up on the floor with Zwei, both of them asleep, and it had been _adorable_ , and she'd really really **really** wanted to take a picture and show it to everyone because it practically made her bones melt with how goshheckingdarn cute it was-

  
-But she knew Blake didn't like her picture taken, and she didn't want to do that without her permission, and Blake pretended not to like Zwei for some reason, which was ridiculous because everyone liked Zwei, even against their better judgment, because they were all slaves to his sad puppy eyes and cute perky ears and soft fuzzy belly and his slimy but somehow still soothing licks-

  
"Jaune Arc, faithful minion-"

  
Weiss rolled her eyes. "Yes, we know."

  
" -here to die repeatedly for everyone's amusement, and with no idea that this party's going to turn into a bloodbath. " He grinned. "I can't wait!"

  
Ruby shuffled her papers and pretended to peer at her FM screen, hoping it would hide her growing evil grin. Jaune had read everything she'd sent him, and he'd made some diabolical suggestions, too. It wasn't really fair, putting both of the team leaders on the same side, but her players had been getting used to surviving. It was time to put the fear of Fortresses back in them!

  
Somewhat recovered, at least enough to look around the table, Pyrrha said, "I'm still Aaria, your diabolist!"

  
Yang pulled her 'I can't believe you ate all the cookies, I made a triple batch, how is that even possible?' face (as opposed to her 'I made a quad batch, and you still ate all of them and I'd be angrier if I wasn't worried that you're going to throw all of it up' face (Ruby hadn't, but it had been a rough couple of hours)) and "whispered" to Blake, loudly enough for everyone to hear, "Perkiest demon summoner I've ever seen. Downright unnatural." She turned to Pyrrha, switching to her 'big sister teasing' face. Whiiiiiiich looked pretty much like her resting face.

  
"Soooo..." Blake leaned forward a bit, "Since you're a snow clone of Mistress Aria, are you cold inside? Will you melt if you, um-" She lapsed suddenly into silence. And now **she** was blushing.

  
 **And** Pyrrha was blushing again.

  
With his much worn rulebook on the table in front of him, Jaune said - thankfully not also blushing, or Ruby would have though it was catching - "I think the snow's just a spell component. It doesn't say anything about weakness to fire, or heat, or heckfire, or anything." He peered closer at the book. "Uh, just that 'the snow clone melts into a pile of slush when reduced to 0 hit points.' Ruby?"

  
"Um, yeah, what Jaune said. While the spell is active, you're not actually snow. Maybe a little cold all the time."

  
And now Blake had Nora's leg-breaking gleam in her eyes, and Ruby was about ready to give up on trying to understand what was going on. "Oh, okay. I can work with that." She turned to Ruby. "So, as part of getting ready for Mistress Aria's party, everyone is having sex with Orlando." 

  
The rest of the players started writing down the benefits - or, in Weiss' case, got out another character sheet. Ruby squinted, trying to read what Weiss had written on the top edge, 'Amped up on Orlando Juice'? Frowning, Ruby tried to understand where the juice came in. She thought they were just having sex. She was about to ask Weiss when-

  
"Whitley Eis, Aeldauphin." Weiss went back to reading her rulebook. She'd put a whole bunch of color-coded bookmarks into it - crimson, red, white, goldenrod, yellow, purple - and Ruby figured that they corresponded to all the players. And her and Jaune, because all of their colored bookmarks were towards the back, where the FM advice was- and Weiss must be cross-checking the bonuses Whitley was getting from Orlando, because she was on a purple bookmark and the lyric thaumaturge.

  
It was time to get to the action. Ruby looked around the table, and said, "Once you do that, and rest and get your hit points and powers back, it's time for the party!"

  
Blake cut in. "Wait, Orlando wanted to get fancy clothes!"

  
Jaune sat back with a sigh, and a 'here we go again' look. Seeing that, Ruby decided she needed to skip ahead a bit. "Uhhh, Aria has had her nobhoblin stitch witches make fancy clothes for you and the rest of her minions. So everyone matches."

  
It seemed like Blake wasn't going to be deterred that quickly. "What do they look like?"

  
"Uhhhh..." Ruby hadn't come up with clothes for everyone! "Dark blue with silver highlights...? And..." She racked her brain for something stylish, yet foreboding. Something that captured Aria's evil and her plan for the new world order.

  
Fortunately, Jaune jumped in, "Why don't you just draw what you think it should be?"

  
Blake immediately started sketching on the side of her character sheet. Leaving everyone else looking at Ruby. Waiting.

  
She scratched Zwei behind his ears, and glanced at her notes. "Jaune, the map?" As her minion spread the expansive map over the table - with the requisite shuffling of drinks, character sheets, scrolls, dice, chips, and candy - Ruby said, "The nobhoblin minors have been carving out this cave complex for a while - right over here is A14, where you first met Aria, even if it's currently the party kitchen."

  
Yang blew out a breath. "I really hope they cleaned it. Furioso kind of redecorated the place with nobhoblin guts."

  
"And here's the main party room, and you've got all these little rooms off of it for more private meetings, and the meeting room up here, where Aria is going to be meeting with all the leaders together, while all of you keep everyone else entertained." Ruby pointed out everything on the map as she mentioned them.

  
Weiss looked up."Who's on the guest list, apart from the Feldauphin?"

  
Reading off her list, Ruby said, "Four different nobhoblin arch-chiefs - two of them already under Aria's control-"

  
Without looking up, Blake said, "Probably more charm spells."

  
"-a Bling-King of the Shiny-Wineys-"

  
Yang laughed. "Booze _and_ loot! The best kind of monsters!"

  
Everyone else just stared at them. 

  
"They're a kind of, uh-" Ruby tried to describe what she'd always seen in her head, from Yang's descriptions. "Think of a garden gnome, but taller, and they've got a wine bottle under their hat, and they're loaded down with gems and mana pieces, and they attack by shooting golden lances at people, and they make you drunk, and-" She looked at Jaune. "Nothing?"

  
He shrugged.

  
Ruby turned to face her sister. "Yang, don't tell me you made Shiny-Wineys up! They have such a good loot table!"

  
"I got them out of _Froghemoth_ magazine! It was just from the library, so I had to copy everything down by hand. And then the library got rid of all their magazines, and we missed the library sale. They're real, I swear." Yang paused. "Well, real made-up things. Real in F&F."

  
Looking up from her sketches, Blake asked her couch-partner. "Were they actually called 'shiny-wineys', though? That sounds like one of your puns."

  
"Where do you think I got my love of bad puns _from_? Why do you think so many Aeldauphin families run breweries? Because it makes them 'princes' of 'ale'. And Feldauphin were originally the 'faildauphin', because they didn't run good alehouses, so they got into poison-making, and-"

  
Weiss put a hand over her face. "I'm just going to pretend I never learned that. Ruby, who else is coming?"

  
"There's an Orka clan-chieftess and her escorts-"

  
"Oh!" Yang sat up straight. "She must be going for the Whale of the Damned class, and she thinks Aria can help her with that. She'll join up; that class is hecking powerful. I'd want it too."

  
Ruby refused to comment on _that_ bit of speculation, and kept reading off the guest list. "-A Bearbarian cult council-"

  
Her sister just _had_ to be disruptive. "Completely unbearable!"

  
"-And a Didachian Machine."

  
Pyrrha cut in. "A robot?"

  
Jaune made hushing motions with his hands. "Shh, we're playing a fantasy game. No robots, no guns. It's just a magical construct run by a self-aware spell. With blast wands for weapons."

  
"Oh." Pyrrha blinked a few times. "I suppose?"

  
Ruby started talking again, before Blake realized there was a literary discussion going on. "This Didachian is actually here as a representative of its hive, though. And just before the party starts, Aria gets all of you together and gives you your jobs for the party." She started going around the circle. "Orlando, you have to make everyone feel relaxed and comfortable. She'd rather you stayed away from direct charm spells, but if you have any ambient ones that just make everyone chattier-"

  
"I've got _ale fog_."

  
Ruby bit her lip. She _really_ needed to reread the lyric thaumaturge spell list. "Is that actually a visible effect, or...?"

  
Weiss answered before anyone else could. "No, it's purely an aural construct. It is 'so named because of the pleasant fogginess it gifts to those in its area of effect, relaxing them and dulling their pains, at the slight disadvantage of dulling the senses.'"

  
"And it's a buff spell, so there's no save against it." Blake grinned.

  
There wasn't really a reason for Aria to say no, even if Ruby had a bad feeling about Blake's plans. "Uh, yeah, Aria says-" She turned to Pyrrha. "Can I have you say Aria's lines? It sounds weird now when I try to do her voice."

  
"Of course!" Pyrrha pulled out her scroll. "Just send them to me."

  
"Okay." Ruby typed away a quick message.

  
Pyrrha, as Aria - as opposed to Aaria - said, "That's an excellent idea, Orlando. Stick around after the meeting. I have another job for you." And then Pyrrha made a weird face at Blake, that Ruby guessed was what Pyrrha thought a leer was? It just kind of looked like Cardin's resting face to her- aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa as if she needed _another_ reason to hate him!

  
The rest of the table - apart from Jaune, who knew this was coming - got all big eyed.

  
Ruby knew her evil grin was showing, and didn't care. Let them think this was her only trick. "What? Aria's picked up on your 'sleep with Orlando, get big bonuses' trick! She wants in!"

  
Yang buried her face in Blake's shoulder, snickering. She'd probably just gone through fear into nervous laughter. Ruby knew that could happen.

  
While her sister cowered in terror, Ruby turned to Weiss, who had her lips pressed together, trying to control herself. "Whitley, you're all high status and stuff, so you get to greet all the guests and play host."

  
After a few attempts - more fear, Ruby guessed - Weiss managed to ask, "Are we letting them keep their weapons and armor?"

  
Ruby typed furiously, and sent the response to Pyrrha to read. "Sure! We want everyone to feel comfortable, because we don't want anyone to feel like this is a trap! Because it isn't!"

  
Looking at Pyrrha, Jaune shook his head. "This Ruby-as-Pyrrha-as-Aria chain is weird."

  
"Just wait." Ruby typed some more.

  
Pyrrha said, "Aaria, I want you to be yourself. Because you are me. But don't make any commitments, just feel people out, and I'll be watching through your eyes, as normal." She turned her head, and said, "All right, Mistress Aria, I'll be sure to do that!" Looking down at her scroll, Pyrrha read a bit more, then addressed Yang. "Furioso, you're on security. I bet our feeble, civilized foes will try something, and you need to be ready to stop them. My sources say something about a 'gore-drenched knight'."

  
Groaning, Yang burrowed deeper into Blake's shoulder. Blake left off sketching long enough to give her head a few comforting pats.

  
Sensing that Pats Were Being Given, Zwei woke up and wuffled at Ruby. She gave him a few of his own, and he drifted off back to sleep.

  
"Are you okay?" Blake tucked Yang's hair behind her ear.

  
"We're doomed." She was a little muffled, still talking into Blake's shoulder. "I should never have shown Ruby how to make Sir Cleaves-A-Lot."

  
"Save it, sis! No talking about the cleavage before it arrives!" 

  
Blake looked down at Yang again, and started stroking her hair. Ruby still couldn't believe Blake got a Hair Touching Pass. She didn't think Weiss had a Hair Touching Pass. Zwei certainly didn't, after The Incident.

  
Ruby ran through her action plan again. Map, party tasks, schedule! Had to have a party schedule. It was the only way to have a meaningful party. She passed a stack of papers to Weiss. "Aria gives out a party timetable to all of you." Weiss flipped through the papers, seeing they were all the same, took the top sheet, and passed the rest along to Pyrrha. "So if Orlando wants to seduce anyone, he has a timeframe." Ruby waited long enough for everyone to have a copy, and skim it over, and said, "Any questions?"

  
Jaune had one. "When did you want me to start reminding you about that thing we talked about?"

  
"Right now." Ruby consulted one of her tables, and made a roll. Not yet.

* * *

  
"Okay, Weiss, the Feldauphin troupe is approaching, fashionable late. You recognize some of them from the fight last time. What do you do?"

  
"I welcome my cousins graciously to the party, and let them know that I, personally, don't have any hard feelings towards them." Weiss supported Zwei on her lap, giving him luxurious belly rubs. If a dog could purr...

  
"The leader graciously accepts your greeting, and asks after your companions." This high society stuff was kind of fun. Ruby wondered if Weiss could give her an actual rundown on the real version after the game.

  
"Well, I'll remind her that all of them survived, and that Furioso really likes his new cloak, and suggest that Orlando may be harboring some ill feelings."

  
"Weiss!" Blake was glaring at her from across the table.

  
Weiss ploughed on forward, like she hadn't heard. "And so they should be **extra** charming towards her. Him."

  
Oh, wouldn't _that_ be a great plan? Charming Orlando away from the party, and seeing if the rest of them would follow him to the Feldauphin. Ruby _had_ always wanted to run a Feldauphin game... She schooled her face into neutrality. "The leader thanks you for your kind suggestion, and presses a gold and jade brooch upon you in thanks, before going inside. It's worked in the shape of an axebeak head, and is worth 100 gold-pressed mana pieces."

  
"And is undoubtedly the focus for a listening spell."

  
Awww. Weiss was no dummy. Unfortunately for the Feldauphin.

  
"I'm going to grab one of the nobhoblin minors we've got serving as busboys, and make him take it to our room. I'll figure out what to do with it later."

  
Jaune chimed in. "Hey Ruby, remember to make that roll. For that thing."

  
She did, and it wasn't time.

* * *

  
"The Didachian replies, 'Thank you, INTERFACE USER=<Aaria>, ADMIN-LF would be more than willing to join your REQUEST to <DESTROY CIVILIZATION> if we receive <ADEQUATE COMPENSATION>."

  
Pyrrha checked her notes. "Umm, QUERY. Folder <ADEQUATE COMPENSATION>, dir."

  
"I'm just going to send the file to your scroll." This Didachian Machine dialogue took forever! Ruby was just glad Pyrrha had started taking notes; she had been getting tired of saying 'ERROR, unrecognized input.' She should have taken Jaune's offer, and let him find that app his sisters had used for Didachian Machines. The flat tones were starting to make her throat itch.

  
Checking her scroll, and flicking through the long list, Pyrrha nodded. "INTERFACE USER=<Aaria> processing input for ADMIN=<Aria>. Loading."

  
After taking a swig of her milk, Ruby monotoned. "QUERY. Loading duration."

  
Pyrrha switched to her copy of the party timetable. "Ummm... Processing. Loading will be compiled by 2100 LFT."

  
"Timetable accepted. QUERY. <KCAL INPUT STATION>."

  
"REQUEST /follow."

  
"/follow ."

  
"Ruby? Roll?" Good old Jaune, giving her reminders every ten minutes. She rolled, and shook her head at Jaune.

* * *

  
"Orlando, a posse of the Feldauphin, including the leader, approach you."

  
Blake was glaring across the table at Weiss again, arms crossed. "I blame you for all of this."

  
"What? Zwei just wanted pets from Yang." Weiss stopped. "Oh, you mean the Feldauphin."

  
Petting her dog, asleep on the couch between Blake and herself, Yang said, "Ruby, I said I was waiting for something like this."

  
"Yeah, yeah, move yourself closer. Half movement through the crowd."

  
Yang schooched her figurine most of the distance to Orlando and the band of Feldauphin. "Almost there, Blake."

  
Rolling, Ruby said, "The Feldauphin leader delivers a biting remark on your clothes. And her cronies snicker, and add some less inspired comments. 23 to hit, 8 stress."

  
"Hey, I haven't even finished drafting them yet!"

  
"Oh, and make a mental health save to avoid thinking about it while you're trying to sleep."

  
Blake frowned and rolled. Frowned harder. "5."

  
"Yeah, that's gonna keep you up. And that was the surprise round, so now it's actual social combat time. Roll initiative."

  
Pyrrha chimed in. "Ruby, can the rest of us help with this?"

  
"Oh, yeah, sure, you'll just have to get close enough. Let me just roll these mingling scatter dice, and figure out where everyone else is..."

* * *

  
"Stupid dice." Blake was doing a lot of glaring today. "Let me do stuff!"

  
"So that's a repartee fail, and..." Ruby rolled. "The Feldauphin's leader's stress is high enough that's she's taking a penalty on accuracy, so her attack missed too. So she's going to start casting an actual charm spell at you, instead."

  
"Oh, oh!" Yang patted Zwei repeatedly, in excitement. He looked up at her, wondering what was going on. "Blake, you have your counter-charm song! That you planned to use to protect Furioso from charms!"

  
Scanning her character sheet, Blake's face brightened. And then fell again. "It's an opposed roll, and she's been kicking my butt at those."

  
But Yang's enthusiasm was undeterred. "And Furioso can use his anti-inquisitor power of boosting spells to give you a giant bonus on it!"

  
Ruby admitted to herself that she'd forgotten about that. Maybe she wouldn't get to drag everyone into a Feldauphin campaign. But her players would feel clever, and that would be a victory of its own. Just not an _actual_ victory.

  
Blake turned to Ruby. "Okay, we're going to do that." She rolled, and so did Ruby.

  
"The Feldauphin got a 26." Ruby lifted her FM screen briefly, showing off the die. "Because she rolled a 20."

  
Yang checked her sheet, and said, "It's a +10 from Furioso."

  
Plus _ten_?! 

  
Blake grinned at Ruby. "Guess what I rolled?"

  
Ruby glanced over at Blake's die, already knowing the answer in her heart. It was another 20.

  
"So that's a 32, total." She reached over and patted Yang's shoulder. "Thanks, dear."

  
Aaaargh. The price of being a Fortress Master. Constant foiling. But Ruby wasn't done yet. "The Feldauphin leader sees that her charm spell failed, and-"

  
"If I can interrupt?" Everyone turned to look at Weiss. Except for Jaune, who was luring Zwei over with a milk bone and the promise of pets. "I just want to read everyone something from the counter-charm description." Ruby felt a sudden stab of panic. "'Not only does this power counterspell charms that are being cast, but it can disrupt existing charms. Anyone in the area of effect is subject to this." Weiss looked up from her book. "So Aria and Orlando _also_ need to roll opposing checks."

  
"Wait, I disrupt my own charms with my counter-charm? That doesn't seem right."

  
Weiss scanned her book. "It doesn't say anything about that."

  
"Besides, I already rolled."

  
Ruby and Jaune had both turned to the relevant sections in their rulebooks, and were frantically reading. And, not surprisingly, Weiss was right about the rules. "Umm, Blake, you don't have to roll again. That would be dumb, and the rules do say you can always choose to not affect your own spells with metaspells, unless it says that you can't. Which it doesn't. So your charm on Furioso is still there."

  
"And Aria's charms?" Weiss knew what she wanted, and Ruby couldn't see a rules reason to deny her. She rolled.

  
"Aria only got a 15. So her charms on your husbands are broken."

  
But Weiss wasn't done. "What about Aaria? And all the nobhoblins?"

  
Oh.

  
Oh **heck**.

  
"I... guess they're all gone too? At least within the area of effect."

  
Blake chipped in. "Which is anyone who can hear it, and is within 100ft." Blake got her remembering face on. "...Isn't the Feldauphin social ladder enforced by charms?"

  
"Umm..." Ruby grabbed her Creature Codices from the floor by her chair, and started flipping through it.

  
"That is what I remember." Jaune said, setting his rulebook down and picking up Zwei. "So, uh..." He peered at the map, instead of giving Zwei the attention he craved. "Absolute chaos? I guess?"

  
Ruby started rolling for how many of the Feldauphin charms broke, even though she knew it would be most of them.

  
Zwei licked Jaune's face. "Ack! Zwei! And remember-"

  
"Yeah, yeah, roll." Ruby rolled, and-

  
...It was time.

  
Trying to contain her excitement, Ruby said, "Okay, so, as everyone is shaking off their charms, and stuff, the doors burst wide open and there's a big knight in plate armor there, with two katanas and a warpick and a big bag of something squirming, covered in guts and gore. And the knight roars..." She looked expectantly at her sister.

  
Yang sighed. "It's cleavage time."

  
"Yaaaaaang, it's not the same if you don't do the voice."

  
Taking a deep breath, Yang let a guttural roar-

* * *

  
Now that most of the curious onlookers had drifted away (mostly the loud ones - Velvet was still here), and most of the minions on all the many, _many_ sides were dead, combat was starting to be fast-paced again.

  
Jaune tipped over the Feldauphin leader. "Aaaaand now Weiss has all her hit points again."

  
"She vampire sworded me first. I'm just better at it." Weiss updated her fancy metal hit point tracker, white-and-blue beads clicking into place. "How is everyone else?"

  
Pyrrha frowned down at her character sheet. "My heckhound is dead, and I only have one charm spell left from my foocubus. Fine on hit points, and I still have a few charmed minions, but that's all I have." That wasn't _quite_ true. She also had a sleeping Zwei in her lap.

  
"As is typical, Orlando is hiding behind a pillar." Blake sighed. "With one hit point. How does this keep happening?"

  
Yang reached over and patted her knee. "Better one hit point than zero. Someone likes you and your 20 Charisma."

  
"I just feel useless. I've still got spells, but the instant I start casting, I'm pretty sure _everyone_ is going to charge me. I started this whole mess, after all."

  
"I dunno, Blake. I think you were just the excuse. This party was going to get violent." Yang pointed at the big knight. "Sir Cleaves-A-Lot guaranteed that. You're just the reason it's a free-for-all, instead of a, uh-" She thought for a second. "-seven faction fight?"

  
Weiss nodded. "The difference is academic, really. Yang, status?"

  
"I would not be thrilled to fight Aria or Sir Cleaves-A-Lot by myself. But not bad." Yang looked around the table. "...Speaking of, do we think Aria knows we're free? None of us have done anything to her yet..."

  
"I'm not an idiot. Especially not original me." Pyrrha held out her character sheet for everyone to see, pointing out her high mental stats. "I think Aria is focusing on the people she _knows_ are her enemies, and she'll deal with us last. Whitley _did_ join her voluntarily, and you two do have reasons to want to bring down civilization as we know it." She started petting Zwei. Probably for the stress relief. Ruby knew that giving Zwei pets always relaxed her! Not, like, sub-pets, though now she was seeing Zwei with a bunch of leashes in his mouth, walking a whole punch of guinea pigs, and hamsters, and probably a giant Ursahound-

  
Before she or her players could get too side-tracked, Ruby barked. "No time to discuss! Middle of a fight! Furioso! You're up!"

  
"I attack the Feldauphin Bolter, the bane of my life last session. 27 to hit-"

  
"Yeah, yeah. Jaune, just tip her over."

  
Yang grinned. "Finally, revenge. And then I'm spending my second use of my anti-inquisitor spell boost to improve Aaria's next spell." She gave Pyrrha a thumbs up. "Charm us another ally."

  
Setting back into his seat, Jaune checked the app running on his scroll. "The Didachian is falling back, spewing out a bright blue cloud to cover its escape." He peered at the board. "Ruby, should I make a morale check for the Orka clan-chieftess too?"

  
"Ummm..." Her consorts were dead, but they were very replaceable. And if she ran, she **definitely** wouldn't get Aria's help to become a Whale of the Damned. "Yeah, with a +2."

  
Jaune rolled, and referenced a chart. He got his thinking face on, then moved the orka's figure between Sir Cleaves-A-Lot and Aria. Which was a **really** dumb place to be. But, Ruby reflected, on the same map as Sir Cleaves-A-Lot was a dumb place to be, and this made her look good to Aria. Jaune said, "She yells to Aria that she'll protect her."

  
Blake sighed. "Beautiful."

  
Snorting, Yang said, "Yeah, the beautiful romance between a character and an overpowered class. Brings a tear to my eye."

  
"You have _zero_ romance in your soul. " But Blake said it with her teasing tilt to her head, so Ruby knew she wasn't serious.

  
Yang put on an outrageous accent, and took Blake's hand, raising it to her lips. Ruby had no idea what the accent was _supposed_ to be, but it was **definitely** outrageous. "Oh, my adored! My precious! My beloved level progression! How I long to spend my experience points on you, our love and our monster-slaying growing stronger, together, with every kill or story award!" Leaning on the couch, Velvet covered her mouth to hide a giggle.

  
Grinning, Blake said, in a breathless voice. "Tell me about my saving throw bonuses!"

  
"Beautiful! Magnificent!" Yang started kissing her way up Blake's arm. Well, 'kissing". Ruby could see she wasn't actually making contact, just making loud smacking sounds with her lips. "I live for your bonus to saves against death effects! I burn for your bonus against fire! Your petrification bonuses make me-"

  
Ruby didn't know _how_ Weiss managed to roll her eyes loudly, but she did. "Can we _please_ get back to the fighting?"

  
After checking his copy of the initiative order, Jaune nodded at Pyrrha. "Aaria?"

  
"But I was enjoying the romance!"

  
Weiss lowered her face to her rulebook, and repeatedly thumped her head into it, making the beads of her hit point tracker rattle faintly.

  
Putting a hand on Zwei, so he didn't slip off her lap, Pyrrha inspected the map and the surviving enemies. Probably trying to decide who to charm. Ruby glanced at Yang, making sure she wasn't giving anything away about Sir Cleaves-A-Lot's charm immunity. Not that Yang would. Learning how to roll dice from Uncle Qrow aside, Yang played by the rules. At least in F&F. She really seemed to like finding weird and powerful things within the rules - like Sir Cleaves-A-Lot, or Orlando's sexspiration - but she didn't try to weasel her way through, trying to work Ruby around to a weird reading of the rules. Like the infinite monkey's paw wishes loop that Ruby had read so many letters about in _Froghemoth_ magazine; sure, all the wishes were cursed, but with infinite wishes, you could use your _next_ wish to take care of the curse, and then-

  
"I'm going to throw my last charm at Aria."

  
Um.

  
"Yang, it was a +10 bonus?"

  
Um!

  
"Nah, it's only a +10 for opposed rolls. It's just a +5 to the difficulty."

  
UM!

  
"Okay." Pyrrha looked at Ruby, waiting. "So does Aria resist the charm? Or succumb?"

  
Ruy pulled her scroll out, and loaded up the dice app. Not that she didn't _trust_ Pyrrha, but if Ruby rolled metal dice for this, and Aria failed her save, and became Aaria's charmed servant, Ruby would always wonder... She tapped the 'roll' button.

  
Her scroll played a die clattering noise - and a sad kazoo 'whzzz whzzz whzzzzzzzzz.'

  
Yang winced. "I _hate_ that noise."

  
Turning her scroll around so everyone could see, Ruby showed off the big '1' on her scroll. "She fails." She said that for Velvet's benefit, because no one had really explained how the game worked.

  
Jaune screwed up his face. "Huh. Does that make Pyrrha Aria now, and Aria Aaria?"

  
"I don't think so." Yang did her 'trying to remember' mouth quirk. "But I think there was an article in _Froghemoth_ about rogue snow clones. And there was something about a ritual to reverse the flow of energy, so the snow clone became the real person, and the real person became the snow clone." She started hunting on her scroll. "I'll try to find it."

  
Pyrrha turned her attention back to the map. "And I guess my other minions are going to attack Sir Cleaves-A-Lot."

  
Ruby told herself to worry about Aria and Aaria later. The battle wasn't over yet.

* * *

  
"And Sir Cleaves-A-Lot finally falls. You wanna say your line, sis?"

  
Yang sighed. "My siblings will avenge me."

  
"There are _more_?" Weiss stared across the table at her team mate. "One nearly killed all of us!"

  
"Look, sometimes the dice go against you, and you don't want to have to roll up a new character, so you just write a 'II' next to your character's name, and start again." Yang shrugged. "I'm not _proud_ of it, but yeah. It was a thing. I wasn't as bad as Ruby. She once jammed a set of trapped doors open with the corpses of her previous characters and-"

  
"The Skellington clan was very practical!" Ruby pounded her fist on the table, making the few remaining upright minis topple over.

  
"There's practical, and then there's macabre."

  
"What do knots have to do with it?" Ruby didn't see the connection.

  
Blake, preventing Zwei from jumping on her lap, said, "That's macrame. Zwei, go _away_." 

  
"...Cookies?" That must be it. And Velvet was sitting on the floor now, and Zwei hopped into her lap, and he was getting pets and love and-

  
Weiss got a longing look in her eyes. "Those are macarons. And I really want some now."

  
Finally, Ruby was on word-ground she knew. "Oh, Yang knows how to make those."

  
"No, I know how to make macaroons."

  
Ruby wasn't clear on the difference, but now she _really_ wanted cookies. "Whatever. So, um. Pyrrha?"

  
"Yes?"

  
"And everyone else, I guess? What are you going to do now? Since Aria's on your side, instead of you being on hers."

  
"First," Weiss brandished a list. When had she had time to write that? "We need to loot everything. Then, we need to decide if we're going to go through with Aria's plan or not. Unite the Fortresses, conquer the world."

  
"That would help me plan next session." Like, a lot. "Jaune, start writing down all the gear everyone had. I'm going to roll for treasure." Ruby looked at her players. "Go on, figure it out. You're adults! Adult! Make decisions!" She pulled out her loot tables, and started rolling, jotting the result down.

  
Yang grinned at the table. "Look, the important thing is that we just _broke_ this Fortress. We killed so many bosses, and we have to hurry and loot their rooms before anyone else realizes they're dead."

  
"Can't you look at the big picture?" Blake spread her arms. "We don't have to go all the way on Aria's plan, but we're in a perfect position to tame _this_ Fortress. We can establish a school, or a city, or some kind of alternative to the Antiprimate and the Iron Inquisition! Mages don't have to be oppressed, and we've made a great start on giving them a safe place."

  
Weiss had her deep strategizing face on. "I wonder if I can take over the local Feldauphin..."

  
"I want to figure out if I can help the orka chieftess. And don't forget, we need to decide what to do with Aria." Pyrrha looked at everyone else. "I don't know if keeping her around is really a good idea."

  
"Thank you!" Yang folded her arms. "I've wanted to kill her since we met her. About time someone listens to me!"

  
"Believe it or not, an inquisitor wanting to kill mages isn't news." Blake didn't look really happy, suddenly.

  
But Yang seemed to be paying attention, because she bit off whatever she was going to say in response, and took a deep breath. "Can we agree that we need to go after the rest of the Fortress, regardless of whatever else we do?" She looked around the table, and got nods and affirmatives from everyone else. "Okay. We can figure out everything else later. Between games, even."

  
"Weiss?" Jaune handed her a list. "That's all the non-treasure stuff."

  
"Thank you." She started re-copying the list, with much better penmanship. "Ruby, what about the rest of it?"

  
Looking up from the fifth '100' in a row she'd rolled, Ruby tried to think of a good explanation. This definitely wasn't Pyrrha's fault; this was just one of those freakish co-incidences where probability took a holiday. "Umm, well. One of the party guests apparently brought a gift for Aria. It's in a small silver chest. And Whitley, you can see the magic leaking out of the seams, even without your Aeldauphin Sight active." Everyone leaned forward.

  
Yang glanced around at everyone else. "I guess I open it."

  
"Inside is a plain iron key of ordinary construction. But the entire Fortress seems to shiver when Furioso opens the chest."

  
Staring at her sister, Yang said. "It is not."

  
"It is."

  
"It can't be."

  
"It absolutely is."

  
"There is _no_ way."

  
Blake and Weiss both got frustrated at the same time, and asked, "What is it?" And then didn't even seem to notice that they'd spoken in unison.

  
Leaning back on the couch, and putting her arms out, Yang said, "It's the Key to the Fortress. It lets you control - well, pretty much everything. Move the architecture around, make furnishings, attract particular kinds of monsters, unlock anything in the Fortress... There was a whole game, F&F: Keymaster, where the premise was that the player had a Key. It's a game-changer. It makes Aria's ambitions a _lot_ more doable. Or Orlando's." She shrugged. "And, I mean, also mine. But 'loot the entire fortress' is pretty small potatoes, next to this."

  
Weiss nodded slowly. And then turned to face Ruby. "What else did we get?"


End file.
